The Silence of Scheherazade Read online

  They passed through their small neighbourhood square. Because of the delicious smell of bread that always wafted out of the bakery on the corner, it was known as Psomalani, Bread-Baker’s Square. As soon as the weather warmed up, residents would take over the square with their children, their chairs and their divans. It had a young sycamore tree with a fountain under it and a neighbourhood police station, and it was encircled by a low wall alongside which the girls would play skipping ropes and eat sunflower seeds.

  That morning the square was deserted because of the rain. The wet cobbles which had been laid the previous week shone like mirrors under their feet and the side streets were rivers of mud. To get into their houses, people had to first jump over ditches that were streaming with water. The sleeping baby on Katina’s back didn’t make a sound.

  Akis’s grocery shop was on Menekse Street, which opened onto the square. It was the bottom floor of a two-storey stone building with a narrow roof. The top floor was their home. In the back was a storage room, a small stony area for the water pump, and a courtyard where Katina hung their clothes to dry.

  Searching under his sash for his key, Akis asked, ‘Did you take the boys to school?’

  ‘A long while ago.’

  ‘So what have you been doing until now?’

  ‘What should I have been doing? I went to Fasoula to the market, bought some meat to make yahni for dinner. Oh, and I’ve run out of saffron at home, so put some aside for me – I’ll lower the basket down for it. I’ll add some to the pilaf this evening. Then I stopped by Kyr Yakoumi’s. He gave me some lavender oil. It seems that if I rub some on the soles of your daughter’s feet, it will help her sleep. He sent some frankincense oil for the boys, for concentration. From there I walked to Berberian’s Bakery. The only way I can get this girl to sleep is to keep walking. I have to tie her on my back like the peasant women do and walk around.’

  Akis looked at the baby. She was in a deep sleep, her white-capped head resting on his wife’s shoulder, her nose and cheeks red and her mouth open. All of a sudden he wanted the evening to come quickly so that he could take his daughter in his arms.

  ‘Go on home quickly now. Don’t let her catch cold. Why ever did you take her out in this storm?’

  ‘What else could I have done – leave her at the coffeehouse? She was making a huge fuss at home, but then she fell asleep before I’d even got as far as the French Hospital. Mrs Hayguhi sent you a pastry, by the way. I’ll bring it to you with your coffee. Or do you want to eat it with subye?’

  Akis shook his head as he raised the shop’s shutters. ‘Bring the coffee. No subye seller will come by in this rain.’

  Katina pushed open the blue wooden door next to the shop entrance and went in. Taking care not to make squeaking noises on the stairs, she tiptoed up to their home. At the top step she took off her shoes and shoved them towards the wall. The woodstove in the centre of the room had gone out, but the house was still warm and smelled of the clean white laundry she had ironed early that morning. As she was taking off her headscarf, she looked in the mirror behind the icon at the baby on her back. Still sleeping. She could sleep until lunch was ready.

  While Katina was lowering the baby into the cradle in front of the bay window, the little girl opened and closed her red lips. Katina’s heart filled anew with love and awe. Every time she looked at the baby, she was overcome by the feeling that she was witnessing a miracle. She covered her with a blanket, then touched the half-moon fingernails of each of her daughter’s slender white fingers one by one. Before going to the kitchen, she made the sign of the cross three times over the cradle.

  ‘Lord Jesus, Holy Mary, protect Panagiota from the evil eye, from accidents and from disasters. Amen.’

  She hadn’t told Akis, but this morning after she’d dropped the boys at school, before going to the market, she had stopped by the Church of Agia Ekaterini. She still couldn’t believe her daughter was alive and well. For a whole year now, she’d been going to the church to give thanks to Agia Ekaterini, who had touched Panagiota with her holy hand and was thus her daughter’s protector, and to the Holy Mother Mary. Immediately after the birth, she had sold the bracelets from her trousseau to make a votive offering. Akis didn’t believe that Panagiota’s birth was a miracle, a blessing from the Holy Mother. He had only grumbled about the offering, but if he knew that Katina went to the Church of Agia Ekaterini every morning to make a donation, he would raise the roof. It was best to keep these visits secret from her unbelieving husband.

  Katina had thought that both she and Panagiota had died during the birth. ‘Thought’ is not the correct word; she was sure of it. As blood coursed down between her legs like a red river, she had risen into the sky like a feather. Down below, on the floor of the bedroom, women were holding her legs and with one voice shouting, as if reciting a prayer they didn’t believe in, ‘Push, Katina. Persevere. Push. Ela, come on, Katina mou. Just a little more.’ The baby was struggling with all its might. Katina was pushing, the women were holding her legs tightly, forcing them down. The baby’s head was not visible.

  The young midwife Marika had fallen to her knees in the middle of the red river, her face dark with fear and hopelessness. She’d been there for forty-eight hours. Checking the cervix with her hand, she murmured, ‘The cursed thing is sealed as tight as the Sultan’s treasury.’

  They should have gone to the hospital right away. The head midwife Meline would have known what to do, but as luck would have it she had been called outside the city to attend a birth at a rich person’s house and had still not returned. One of the assistants had run to the Turkish district to fetch Old Aybatan. Taking no notice of its being midnight, the elderly woman immediately got up from her bed, prepared her bag, threw a shawl over her head and shoulders and rushed to Akis and Katina’s home on Menekse Street. Katina was able to endure the second twenty-four hours with the help of the herbs that Old Aybatan dipped in alcohol and dribbled down her throat, drop by drop.

  From where she was perched once she had left her blood-soaked body and floated up like a feather after forty-eight hours, she saw Old Aybatan whisper something in the midwife’s ear. She couldn’t hear her, but she knew what she was saying. ‘You can’t save the baby now; save the mother.’ The baby had died. Katina wanted to speak, but, as in a nightmare, when she opened her mouth, no sounds came out. She wanted to say, ‘Let me die.’ Like people who freeze to death, she wanted to surrender herself to the hereafter as to a sweet slumber. A shining white tunnel appeared before her. It arched like a rainbow across the sky and at the other end her little daughter was waving to her. The little girl looked exactly like her mother, and this made Katina very happy. Her sons took after Akis’s family – dark, strong, heavy-boned boys – but her daughter was tiny, with red hair and freckles, just like her mother. Katina took a step towards her, into the brightly lit tunnel.

  Down below, around the body she had abandoned, something was happening. From far, far away, she heard Midwife Marika say something in her ear. ‘Stay with us, Kyra Katina. We’re taking you to the hospital.’ They shouldn’t have bothered. What a wonderful freedom it was to be without a body! Everything seemed to be made of light. Katina touched the wall of the tunnel. She was progressing step by step towards its end. The light of the wall poured from her fingers like phosphorescence. Even her new body was composed of light, like everything else. Her hands, her arms, her whole body became one with all she touched. Katina was light; the tunnel itself, the daughter waiting for her at the other end, everything was light, everything was connected. No one was separate from anyone else. Separation was just an illusion. Ah, how could she have lived so many years without knowing this simple truth. What a shame! Watching with awe as her hands, her arms, her body turned into light, she continued her journey.

  There was no doubt that she was going to heaven.

  All her life she had tried to be a good Christian. As well as going to church every Sunday, she had also gone without fail on saints’ d
ays and holy feast days. Whenever her prayers had been answered, she had always given the offering she had promised. Before Christmas, Easter and Holy Mother Mary day she had fasted for forty days, said her prayers without missing a single one. She was certain that Mother Mary was waiting for her and her little daughter at the end of the tunnel.

  She wanted to say, ‘Don’t take me to the hospital,’ but couldn’t find the breath to speak.

  From the sky she looked down. The dark red river between her legs had consumed the whole world. Suddenly her heart tightened. Was that her blood? Katina was walking in the light of the tunnel, but down below people were screaming, roofs were collapsing, and the screeching of birds with their wings on fire mixed with the shrieking of humans. This was a nightmare. Flames were swallowing life in every corner. That had to be hell. It was even worse than its description in the Holy Book. ‘Mother Mary, Panagia mou, keep my sons safe from the devil’s tricks, forgive their faults and their sins. Keep them from the nightmare I see below. Open the doors of heaven for them.’ With this prayer in her heart, she lost consciousness.

  A long while passed. When she opened her eyes, a divine light in gold, blue and green was playing on the wall. Dust motes dancing in the air above her bed had taken on the same colours. A cool salty breeze carried the scent of magnolia blossoms through the window into the whitewashed, high-ceilinged room. So this was heaven. Gazing with half-opened eyes at the fig leaves rustling in front of the window, Katina remembered what her mother had said about magnolia blossoms. ‘When you put the flower in a vase, you must suffocate it a bit with a piece of thread. Otherwise the perfume will suffocate you.’

  At the memory of her mother, the little freckle-faced girl Katina had left at the end of the tunnel came into her head. Her hands instinctively went to her stomach. She had returned to her earthly body. She could hear the murmurings of patients on the other side of the curtain. She was not in heaven but still on earth. Sorrow spread through her like the liquor Old Aybatan had dribbled down her throat. Her stomach was deflated; her womb ached subtly. She felt very lonely without the being who had lived inside her for nine months.

  Turning from the window, she closed her eyes and let her sorrow flow onto the pillow. The emptiness of her stomach was like a fist striking her from the inside. The little red-haired, freckle-faced girl at the end of the tunnel appeared again. She was waving to her mother. Then, smiling, as if to remind her that all was light, she disappeared into the white eternity.

  ‘Panagia mou, Mother Mary, put me back in that tunnel. Take this body from me. Let me be with my daughter.’

  It seemed that God and his angels had other plans concerning Katina’s death, for no answer came from any of them. Instead, the curtain opened and a European nurse in a pink uniform appeared beside her bed. She was carrying a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket. She was a tall, smiling-faced woman. Her blonde hair was gathered in a tight bun and her round white face shone like an August moon. She spoke Greek with a cute accent. ‘Good morning, Kyra Katina,’ she said. ‘I am Nurse Liz. Are you ready to meet your daughter?’

  Katina looked with shock at the nurse and at the yellow blanket which was being handed to her. The baby had a full head of hair. Her face was bright red, her eyes shut tight. As Nurse Liz placed the baby in Katina’s arms, her tiny mouth opened and she began to cry at the top of her voice.

  ‘Your daughter is very hungry,’ said the nurse with a smile as she settled the baby in Katina’s arms. ‘The hospital’s wet nurse fed her while you were unconscious. Seeing that you had woken up, I grabbed her immediately and brought her to you.’

  As if under a spell, Katina looked at the red-faced infant in her arms. Not a sound was heard in the room.

  ‘You had a difficult night. You were unconscious when Marika brought you here. Thank the good Lord, our head midwife Meline came to the rescue like a godsend. The angels must be protecting you and this little one. I don’t know how Meline got the news of your situation in the pitch dark of night, especially as she’d gone to attend a birth outside the city. As soon as she arrived here, she shut herself up with you in the delivery room. She didn’t want any of us around and she delivered your baby all by herself. While we were upstairs, she even washed and swaddled it as well. What a marvellous midwife she is – she can even revive dead babies.’

  Exhausted, Katina nodded. While the nurse was speaking, the baby had found her mother’s nipple and had begun to suck with her tiny mouth. Nurse Liz’s face lit up. ‘Just look at that! It’s as if she learned to suck in the womb. She knows exactly what to do.’

  It was only after the nurse had left her alone to go and see to some other patients that Katina could touch the baby’s lips, her black hair, the soft little ears that seemed they might melt in her fingers. It was unbelievable. Her daughter – mouth, nose, bones and flesh – was lying in her arms. It was a miracle! So this was the reason Mother Mary, Almighty God and the angels had not taken Katina’s soul. A miracle! Mother Mary had touched this infant with her holy hand. With wet eyes, Katina made the sign of the cross and whispered in her baby’s ear. ‘Na ziseis, moro mou. Live a long life, my child.’

  With the baby at her breast, half crying, half laughing and continuously giving thanks to the Blessed Mary, Katina erased from her memory the sight of the little daughter waving farewell to her at the end of the white tunnel as she hovered between life and death.

  The Leather Briefcase

  ‘Is Mademoiselle Edith Sofia Lamarck available? It is necessary that I speak with her on an extremely important matter.’

  The foreigner who stood with his hat in his hands at the entrance to the Lamarck residence looked more like a vulgar provincial than a lawyer. Butler Mustafa, who had opened the door, took him for a soap salesman from Aydin. In spite of the cold and the rain, the man was wearing an oversized cream-coloured frock coat. Although his reddish-brown moustache was trimmed short and his shiny, pomaded hair had been carefully combed back, there was still something unrefined about him. Perhaps this was because he was leaning slightly to one side, upon a silver cane, or perhaps it was because the legs of his trousers, purposely cut long to compensate for his short stature, fell over the heels of his pointy-toed shoes.

  Edith walked back down the stairs. It didn’t escape the butler’s eyes that the uninvited guest seemed startled at the sight of her. But the man quickly recovered, and, holding his hat behind him, bowed low to the ground, saying in strongly accented French, ‘Mademoiselle, may I introduce myself. My name is Dimitrios Mitakakis. Do I have the honour of speaking to Lady Edith Lamarck herself?’

  ‘Yes, I am she. How can I help you?’

  The man observed Edith’s flat bosom, thin body and pale face and pulled at his moustache. Her unruly hair was gathered into a bun and she looked as if she’d only just got out of bed. The only sign that she was a mature woman was her deep, self-confident voice.

  ‘Enchanté, mademoiselle. I have come from Athens to meet with you. I am an attorney.’

  Edith extended her hand to be kissed. Just as she was about to welcome her visitor into the reception room, the double-door of the dining room opened and Juliette dashed out in her pink dressing gown. Seeing a stranger standing in the hall, she made a show of closing the top of her gown and tying the sash.

  ‘Yes?’

  Unbuttoning his frock coat, Mitakakis again repeated his name and introduction.

  ‘Ah, no doubt you are seeking my sons. They left for the city on the eight o’clock train. You have come to Bournabat in vain. Do you know the location of our business in Smyrna? It’s on the quay.’

  ‘That will not be necessary, madame. I have come to meet with Mademoiselle Lamarck.’

  Juliette untied and retied her dressing gown nervously, glancing from her daughter to the lawyer and back again. Her left hand rose instinctively to her neck and her blue-green eyes widened. After a short silence, she said, ‘But what dealings could you have with us? Following my late husband’s sudden death, the busi
ness was turned over to my sons. Monsieur Lamarck had a heart attack and left us two years ago. Surely you have heard about that.’

  ‘Yes, forgive me. Of course, I am aware of that. Please accept my belated condolences on your loss, Madame Lamarck.’

  When nothing further was said for some time, Juliette drew in a long breath. The attorney was perhaps reluctant to speak in front of the servant.

  ‘Fine. Let us proceed to the library in that case. There we can speak comfortably. I will be happy to assist you in any way I can. Mustafa, ask the kitchen to prepare coffee, se parakalo. Monsieur Mitakakis, would you prefer Turkish coffee or, as they say here, “European” coffee?’

  Her nervous laughter reverberated through the emptiness of the high-ceilinged hall. Edith remained standing there, stubborn and frowning. The lawyer continued leaning on his cane, grinding the black and white stars of the hall floor with the pointed toes of his shoes. Finally, without lifting his eyes from the floor, he murmured, ‘I have come to speak privately with Mademoiselle Edith on a certain matter.’

  ‘And what is that matter?’

  As her anxiety intensified, Juliette’s voice became more strident. The lawyer raised his head and perused the faces of the two women standing opposite him. They put him in mind of the symbolic masks used in the plays of the Ancient Greeks. The mother’s face, stretched into a tight smile, was like a mask for a comedy; the daughter’s face, with its downturned mouth, was for a tragedy. Yet there was something familiar in her frown.

  ‘Unfortunately, it is by law not permissible for me to share this information with you, Madame Lamarck.’

  ‘But…’ A red flush began rising up Juliette’s throat and face.